Quantitative evaluation of corrugation severity by using instrumented wheelset

•The instrumented wheelset provides a means of identifying corrugation in high-speed railway.•The severity of corrugation is inconsistent with the intensity of wheel-rail force.•The excitation mechanism of the corrugation is studied by numerical simulation.•A method to evaluate the severity of corrugation is proposed based on track management.•The method has a good performance by field measurements in corrugation sections. Accurate evaluation of corrugation severity is essential for timely rail maintenance to prevent potential hazards. This paper aims at the excitation characteristics of corrugation and presents a study on the evaluation method using wheel-rail vertical force (WRVF). First, a 3D wheel-rail dynamic model is established by the parameters of service vehicles and track in China’s high-speed railway, corrugated rail was finely modelled with the consideration of out-of-roundness and random track short irregularity. The model was validated with measured data come from instrumented wheelset in time and frequency domain, the stability and dynamic response of the model are studied numerically to explore the excitation characteristics of corrugation. Then, the variation of WRVF with depth and wavelength respectively was discussed, the mapping relationship between the 95th percentile maximum of the WRVF and the corrugation wavelength is revealed, the influences of the natural frequency and contact behavior of the wheel-rail system on the mapping relationship were analyzed. Finally, the corrugation severity index (Csi) is introduced to quantify the degree of rail damage. The applicability of Csi was tested on 65 sets of corrugated sections on high-speed railway, and the results of field measurement showed that the hit rate of Csi in evaluating the severity of corrugation is 93.8%, indicating that the proposed method has a good performance in actual detection. Thus, Csi can provide a scientific reference for the quantitative evaluation of corrugation severity and decision-making for rail grinding in high-speed railway.